


Vecchio’s Secret

by Paraxdisepink



Category: due South
Genre: Crack, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-19
Updated: 2013-03-19
Packaged: 2017-12-05 19:30:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/727091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paraxdisepink/pseuds/Paraxdisepink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fraser and Ray K come to town for Stella and Vecchio’s wedding. There’s something Vecchio never told Fraser and something Fraser hasn’t told Vecchio.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vecchio’s Secret

**Author's Note:**

> http://paraxdisepink.livejournal.com/259017.html on LJ. Written for a crack one night stand challenge.

The only thing worse than shooting a friend in the back was stabbing him in the back. That pearl of wisdom came later, in the ambulance rushing Benny to the hospital with the sirens blaring and the headlights washing the dirty streets orange and blue. The thought at the time . . . Well, it wouldn’t have happened had I been thinking at the time, but my pops liked to say I screw everything up. There was only one thought that mattered though. I had it coming for this one.

I should be with her, I kept hearing Benny say in my mind, and I remember staring out the ambulance window in the direction Victoria had disappeared on that train in the chaos that night. I could have stopped her. I could have called the next station and had them take her into custody, but I’m a sensible guy. I knew when it was better to sweep a mess under the rug, and I held out hope someone would put a bullet in her someday. Catch her, and she would tell Benny the truth, ice the cake of the revenge she had worked out so intricately. That was her plan, to teach Benny about betrayal, but if she’d known him at all she would have known the lesson would bounce right off him in the end. After a few weeks he was back battling the evils of the world naïve and hard-headed as ever, too naïve to believe a friend like me could betray him. How that was my fault, I don’t know. He was the one with the unrealistic expectations. I never painted myself as a good guy.

When he shot me, I figured we were even. After all, what worse punishment is there than lying in a hospital bed while an old wrinkled nurse forces you to use a bedpan? The wrinkled nurse was her own form of punishment, the cruel and unusual kind with hands like sandpaper and a voice equally grating. What else could it be but divine retribution that I didn’t get a blonde beauty fresh out of school who sponge bathed me and took charge of my physical therapy in her own special way. Sometimes there were incentives to being a good guy, but it was like God wouldn’t trust me with a beautiful woman again. 

I thought about telling Benny in the hospital, and during those long hours they had him in surgery I promised God that I would be right there with the truth the instant Benny opened his eyes if he could just live through this. Even then I think I knew that was a load of bull. When Benny came to a few hours later I convinced myself the timing wasn’t right. He was a broken man half dead to the world on morphine. I couldn’t kick him when he was down, even if he deserved it for making me crawl through garbage dumps and ruining my suits.

So what’s the thing to do? Pretend it never happened, right? I mean, after bailing him out of jail, getting stuck in that vault, and refraining from emptying a clip into Ian’s McCloud’s demented head, I’d more than paid my dues. I blew up my _car_ for him. That had to count for something. I didn’t need this kind of guilt. I get enough of it from my mother.

Benny trusted me, that was the hard part. He trusted me to take that woman into my home and look out for her, and he trusted that I would keep my word even though I made clear I didn’t want anything to do with her. Not many men would trust you alone with their woman, but maybe after all the kicking and screaming I did he figured he had nothing to worry about. 

Kicking and screaming aside, I brought that Victoria woman into my house in good faith. Any friend of Benny’s is a friend of mine, even one who screamed bad news from the beginning. I could see how she fooled him though. I’m a red-blooded guy and my eyes work, thank you very much, as do certain other pertinent body parts. She had long dark hair like silk falling from her shoulders and glowing white skin like an angel made from snow. It was easy for that glow to blind a man to the deception in her. I recovered clear sight faster than Benny, true, but only because she showed me her cards and let on about the game she was playing.

The knock came at my bedroom door as I drifted off to sleep. I opened my eyes and cursed Benny for dragging me into yet another colossal mess, but seeing as how that never did any good I gave up and listened for signs of Chuckles in the hall. Nothing. But I told her to knock if anything happened so I dragged myself out of bed, striped silk pajamas and all, only to do a double-take when I opened the door. Victoria was standing there, not huddled in her coat and sweater anymore, but wearing nothing but a cream-colored satin nightshirt that showed off legs whiter and smoother than the rest of her, so smooth the Chicago winter didn’t even touch her. No goosebumps, nothing.

This woman had robbed a bank in Canada, shot Dief, and had some psycho chasing after her, not to mention that she was the only woman to grace Fraser’s bed in all the fourteen months he had been in Chicago, and all I could do was stare at her legs. I had no right to look at those legs, I told myself, and it was what she had between them that got Benny in this mess in the first place. 

“I was wondering if you had any lotion,” she said in that silver voice that reminded me of a music box Francesca had as a kid. I jerked my eyes up from those extraordinary legs to find her pushing her black curls back from her shoulders, her fingers long and slim, graceful. “I was helping Ben clean up the kitchen and my hands got a little dry.” She flashed me a smile, the light in the hall adding touches of red to her hair. My anger and suspicions toward her significantly diminished with the sight. My capacity for anger and suspicion diminished. Benny could sure pick ‘em.. 

I got a grip on myself and blinked at her. “Lotion? You woke me up for _lotion?_ ” I had expected that screwball outside her window or a threatening phone call or something urgent. I didn’t realize she had taken my instructions to knock if she needed me to mean I was at her beck and call.

She didn’t flinch at my irritation, just tossed her hair and flashed me another smile, this one embarrassed and apologetic. Damn right she should apologize. Benny was tearing his guts out over her and all she worried about was her hands? I expected that from my sister, not from a woman Fraser would fall head over heels in love with.

“I’m sorry to have bothered you. I’ll just . . .” 

I caught her arm before she could go. In a sick way I found myself wishing there was danger as I my fingers soaked up some of the warmth of her. I wanted prove that I could protect her as well as Benny. That was ludicrous. I didn’t want to be anything like the Mountie, and this was his girlfriend. Still, my eyes felt ready to pop out of my head as I watched her turn, that thin nightshirt clinging to her thighs and the curve of her butt as she moved. She wasn’t wearing anything underneath, and I had to bite my tongue to keep from letting out a “wow.”

“I have lotion,” I told her before she could slink back to her room. “Sit down and I’ll get it for you.”

She sat at the foot of my bed, folding her legs under her and smoothing her nightshirt over her thighs, and maybe she was Benny’s woman, but he didn’t own the sight of her. No one could fault a man for looking, and when a woman showed herself off to you like that she would take it as an insult if you didn’t look. Bada-boom-bada-bing. Nothing wrong with filling the eyes.

I figured the lotion couldn’t hurt either. Maybe I could sit her down and get a few things straight, get her to be smart and come clean before she took Benny down with her, but apparently she had other ideas.

She took the lotion from me with another soft smile, pouring it onto her hands and taking her time smoothing it in, letting her fingers slide together, in and out and curling around like her hands were doing ballet. I stood there staring, feeling the room get hotter around me. My skin prickled, and my eyes followed each little stroke as she massaged the cream into her skin. Why, why, why? I whined to myself. Why did Benny do this to me? Here I was alone with a beautiful woman and it had to be under these circumstances. I felt like Tantalus from Greek mythology class. This was one of those times when I hated Benny’s guts. Well, that happened a good seventy-five percent of the time. 

“So Ben didn’t tell you how he saved my life in a storm and turned me in?”

The sound of her voice caught me off guard, I was so busy gaping. But I cleared my throat and tried to pull my thoughts together. I detected bitterness, real bitterness, and should have taken it for a clue that Victoria had come here with payback on her mind.

“He told me you drove the getaway car.”

She laughed. “Yeah well girls just want to have fun.” The bottle was in her hand again and after pouring out another handful of lotion she unfolded her legs. I watched her start at her calves and slowly work her way up to her thighs, taunting me with the way her skin shone under the dim light from the lamp beside my bed. My throat went dry. I couldn’t remember the last time I had seen legs like that, and if I had it had to have been in a pantyhose commercial given the noticeable lack of beautiful and perfect women in my life.

“I thought that was for your hands.”

She laughed again, tilting her head to look up at me, dark curls slipping into the gap of her nightshirt, giving me no choice but to look there, and from what I could see she had a set of breasts as perfect as her legs. “Why don’t you sit down?”

I sat, and she moved closer, her shoulder touching mine, silk sliding against satin. “I’ve always liked Americans. You say what you think. So tell me what think, Detective.” She leaned back on her palms, her nightshirt pulling tight across the breasts I had admired a moment ago. Oh man, why couldn’t I stop looking? I had to shift one leg over the other so she wouldn’t see the things going on in my pajama bottoms.

 _I think you should get the hell out of here,_ I wanted to say, _I think I should call Benny and tell him he’s got a two-timing tramp for a woman._ I wanted to, but she straightened and reached across her lap for my hand, her skin soft and moist from the lotion. Her fingers were still coated with it, and the words died on my tongue when she began rubbing the excess into my skin, the pads of her fingers moving in soft circles, her eyes on mine all the while, casting a spell on me. The silk of my pajama pants tightened, and the tingling down there became harder to ignore.

“You’re skin’s dry. You should do something about it.”

That soft, silvery voice mesmerized me, and I could feel the tickle of her breath on my hand. I wanted to pull away, but Victoria wasn’t allowing me any moral compunctions. She brought her hand up to one side of my face, and before I knew what was happening my eyes fell closed and I felt the tickle of her hair against my cheek and then the warmth of her mouth on mine. I made a sound and tried to yank myself free, but she balled her hand into the front of my shirt and held me there, her other hand sliding up to the back of my neck. Her tongue pushed its way into my mouth, and all the blood in my body rushed from my brain to my groin faster than a gun shot.

I was dizzy when she pulled away, staring dumbly at this dark-haired goddess on my bed, trying to reconcile the fact that she was the same woman Benny had brought me to protect. The same woman. _His_ woman. I held on to that fact as I caught my breath and opened my mouth to speak.

“Look, we’re not . . .”

That’s as much as I got out before she cut me off. “Ben’s not here.” Her face hardened when she said his name and there was real coldness in her voice. I should have told her to get out of my room and out of my house, that I meant what I said about killing her if she hurt Benny, but she hadn’t let go of my shirt. When she hauled me forward for another kiss, I told myself this was perfect. All I had to do was tell Benny she had come onto me, and he would tell her to start walking and find himself another woman, even if it was my sister.

That only worked until I found myself kissing her back. Her fingers loosened, stroking over my chest, opening the buttons of my shirt, and somehow I was falling backward, her hand pushing me flat on my back. My head fell back, and I squeezed my eyes shut, but relying on feeling alone only made it worse. Her body slid over mine, hot and smelling like lotion, her thighs strong where they straddled my waist.

The halves of my shirt crumpled away against the bedspread and she started kissing down my chest, her mouth wet and confident like she had done this hundreds of times. I knew where she was going and I couldn’t look. It seemed less sinful if I didn’t feast my eyes. My stomach quivered when she her lips touched it and by the time her fingers slipped into the waistband of my pants I could barely control my breathing. There was no stopping her now, not with little Raymondo crying out for attention.

I jumped when her mouth wrapped around me, but I didn’t look. Lust was with the eyes, lust was with the eyes, I kept repeating to myself, and as the pleasure and the guilt battled it was “my car, my car, remember what Benny made me do to my car, remember the sewers he mad me crawl though!” The woman sucked on me like she’d been wandering around starving for days.

She only kept at it long enough to deplete me of whatever sense and moral qualms I had left. Then she was crawling up again, her thighs brushing bare skin where she had tugged my pants down. I let out a whimper I’d like it known was another protest, but she didn’t hear it. The ends of her hair swept across my chest as she bent over me, and then my cock was slowly sinking into the warmest of warmth. Heavenly warmth, hellfire warmth, damnation itself to be exact. She moved like she came from the Devil, like a woman hellbent on revenge. Her fingers drug into my upper arms as she held me down and ground her hips and moaned, and my head threatened to explode with the pleasure flooding through me.

I pretended to fall right into sleep the minute she climbed off me, rolling over so I didn’t have to look at her. I could still hear her high pitched cries as I lay there with my eyes shut, trying to forget the glimpse I wish I hadn’t taken of her breasts bouncing and her white thighs spread wide over me. Maybe it had all been just a dream. Things like this only happened to a guy in his dreams. Then again I wondered why the guilt. How could this be the right woman for Benny if she was over here taking me for a ride?

We never spoke about Victoria again. I went undercover and Benny ran off to Canada with Blondie, and then Stella swept me off my feet, smart and beautiful and perfect. After a couple months the word “wedding” came into the picture, and even though it was the second time for the both of us we wanted the whole deal with the church and the white dress. That meant a best man, so of course I called up Canada, where marvel of marvels Benny had entered the twentieth century and owned a place with a real phone, electricity, and running water. I took the credit for civilizing him, after all our time together. What an accomplishment. 

He was thrilled when I told him I was marrying again, and big stupid Canadian that he was, he turned around and repeated the news to none other than Stanley Kowalski. I heard a string of profanity and the sound of someone punching a wall repeatedly, and only after a low chant of “Ray, Ray, Ray” did the punching stop. And Benny? He got right back on the phone and beamed that he would be delighted to make the trip to Florida and stand for me. The old guilt crept up then to hear him so happy for me, but Victoria was in the past now, right?

Given Kowalski’s reaction, I figured Benny would come down alone. Stella wasn’t interested in seeing her ex anyway. She justified her attraction to the guy by saying he could be funny and an adventure in bed, but his drinking, fighting, and never growing up had gotten old real fast, and she didn’t need him showing up with that godawful hair, punching holes in the reception hall wall in front of our new friends, yelling in that South Side street accent that he was going to kick my teeth in. She would die of shame before she let anyone think she had once been married to a low-life psycho. That’s the first time any woman treated me as a step up in the world.

In all honestly, I had nothing against Kowalski, other than a little resentment at that “adventure in bed” label. I mean, I’m Italian for God’s sake. Sure, I was convinced Welsh hated my guts when he brought in a scrappy punk who couldn’t dress his way out of a paper bag as my replacement, but the guys at the station told me Kowalski was nothing to laugh at, that when Benny heated things up he would step right in front of him with his badge and his gun and dare anyone to try anything. Benny must have loved that, someone volunteering to be his human shield. Me, I never forgave him for the horse meat. Kowalski had a record for bravery too, citations for saving kids and getting his man that must have melted Benny’s little heart when he read the files. Crazy guy, noble guy – two sides of the same coin. They could knock themselves out as partners, so long as Benny came over for guys’ night when he was supposed to.

I never forgot the night he didn’t show, and the night after, never stopped wondering how I could let that happen. That was part of the reason I didn’t want Kowalski at my wedding; it was hard to look a good guy in the face after you’d been with the love of his life. Victoria, Stella. Am I the only one seeing a pattern? Only Francesca and her self-help books knew what it said about me, not that I would ever subject myself to the torture of seeking her opinion, or give her the satisfaction.

Benny’s invitation came back marked for one guest, and who else could that be but Dief? Stella wouldn’t like a wolf at her wedding, but Benny would be crushed if he couldn’t bring the little guy. It wasn’t the wolf waiting for us at the airport though; it was Kowalski, with his spiked hair and black leather jacket over clothes I wouldn’t be caught dead in on laundry day. He smiled at me with that slightly dangerous smile from where he and Fraser stood by the baggage carousal, and I glanced over at Stella with my guts in a knot. No guy liked it when you married his wife, and this guy was unstable.

“You’re not coming to the wedding, Ray.” 

Those were the first words spoken between the four of us, before I could so much as give Benny a hug, and even I had to flinch at the force in Stella’s voice, worshipped her though I did. Benny flinched too and exchanged a look with Kowalski, still playing it cool with that smile, but I could see by the way he lowered his eyes that her snapping at him hurt. 

“I’m just here with Ben, okay?” He fingered his chin and perked up a little. “Actually, I came down to the ‘States to get my car and maybe hook up with Welsh and Frannie if they’ve around, then it’s back to the snow and the mountains and the frozen north for good.”

He didn’t look at me, not even after mentioning my kid sister, and I was convinced he had come down to kill me. Benny, clueless as usual, tried to interject some good old-fashioned Canadian politeness into the conversation, smiling over at Stanley.

“You might be interested to know, ma’am, that Ray here has adapted commendably to the north. He can climb mountains, drive a sled, and just last week he tracked his first caribou. He was a little hesitant to shoot it, I’m afraid.”

Stella looked right past him, as though Stanley had spoken instead. “What? Was kicking it to death more your style?”

Kowalski shrugged, lowering his face to hide a smile that reeked of embarrassment. “Nah, Stell, it was . . . uh . . . kinda cute.”

“He’s getting soft.” Fraser put an arm around him and patted his shoulder, grinning like a moron. Same old Benny.

“You’re still not coming, Ray.” Stella tucked a stray piece of blond hair behind her ear and folded her arms. She always talked about changing her hair, but now she looked ready to tear it out, and I knew this couldn’t be good.

“What? You think I might embarrass you?”

“You know how you are. Look at you.”

Kowalski looked down, studying his t-shirt and worn baggy jeans. Something crumpled in his face. “Yeah, yeah I do. I’ll just . . . I’ll just get a cab, okay?” He untangled himself from Benny, slung his bag over his shoulder, and started to walk away. 

Fraser reached out and called after him. “Ray . . .”

Stanley turned, already several yards away, but only to shake his head. “It’s okay, Ben. You two do the best man thing. I’ll see you at the motel.”

“Ray!” I thought I heard an undertone of panic in Benny’s voice as Kowalski disappeared down an escalator, panic that screamed “please don’t leave me to make small talk with this woman!” 

That woman, my lovely future wife, unfolded her arms and adjusted her coat. “Oh let him go.” She sounded angry, but I followed her eyes as she turned to watch where Kowalski had gone, and I thought I saw disappointment in her face.

Benny caved, reluctantly, and we talked about the usual in the car. What he’d been doing and what happened to everyone we knew at the bullpen, and how Welsh and Francesca couldn’t wait to see him. It was good to see him again, but after a long day of traveling all the way from the artic he looked ready to collapse, so we dropped him off at his motel where I would pick him up in the morning.

Stella was quiet on the way home. When I asked her what was wrong she looked down at the steering wheel and sighed. “I never thought he’d get over me.” It was my turn to get quiet and start worrying. Obviously, she didn’t want Stanley getting over her, and when a woman wanted a guy hanging on it meant she was keeping her options open.

She dropped me off at our house and turned the car right around to run errands, and with Benny’s face fresh in my mind I started thinking of Victoria again, afraid it was finally time for the payback I had coming. I got this crazy idea in my head that Stella hadn’t gone to run errands, and I pictured her sneaking into Kowalski’s room asking for lotion – or hair gel more like it – and spending the night with him. I loved her, and I couldn’t stand the thought of losing her, but I was convinced that’s what would happen if I didn’t tell Benny the truth, so I got in my own car and went to find him as fast as I could.

Benny, true to form, was staying in the worst part of town, on the ground floor where it would be easy as pie for a crook to break in, and everyone knows there’s as many of those in Miami as there are in Chicago. I got no answer when I knocked on his door, though I could hear him inside. I couldn’t make out the words, but clearly he was awake, so I pushed the door open because Benny never bothered with locks.

And there they were on the bed, one of Kowalski’s long legs slung across Benny’s hip. Benny had one hand under his shirt and the other in those blond spikes, holding Kowalski down by his hair while he ground their mouths together. Kowalski wasn’t trying to get away either; his hand was busy unfastening Fraser’s belt.

I wanted to scrub the sight from my eyes, but I just stood there, frozen in shock. Benny with a guy? _Benny?_ My friend and best man Benny? I felt like someone had stabbed me, like I’d never known this guy at all, and now I wanted to go back and reevaluate everything we’d been through together. He’d never told me. He’d never let on. I felt . . . betrayed.

I ducked out of that room as quietly as I could. I didn’t want either of them knowing I had seen. I didn’t ever want to talk about it, or think about it, or rationalize whether the whole thing made sense and if I should have seen it coming. But I had to get the truth off my chest, so I took a pen from my pocket and wrote on the back of a florist’s card and slipped it under the door.

Stella was waiting when I got home, yelling at me not to come upstairs where she was trying on her wedding dress. She hadn’t gone to Kowalski after all, or maybe she would have if I hadn’t left that note, not that there was any chance of him going for her with the way him and Benny had been at it. Benny, Benny and a guy . . . You think you know someone . . . I’d bet my right hand the very same thought would run through Benny’s mind when he found my note.

_I slept with Victoria. See you tomorrow._


End file.
